Canon Fodder: American Beauty

Here's where dark-lipsticked Jane confronts her dad about ogling her best friend:

JANE: I've been too embarrassed to bring her over. Because of you, and the way that you behave.

LESTER: What are you talking about? I've barely even spoken to her.

JANE: Dad! You stare at her all the time, like you're drunk! It's disgusting!

LESTER: You better watch yourself, Janie, or you're going to turn into a real bitch, just like your mother.

Why the appeal of Lester and Janie's suburban gothic? Answer: William Wallace, Oskar Schindler, whatever Kate and Leo's names were in Titanic. American Beauty was the first non-epic/historical movie to win a Best Picture Oscar in nine years (all costumes since 1991's Silence of the Lambs win). Its focus is on a modern dysfunctional family, rather than gorgeous people peacocking in period garb—though looking back, it is a bit of a schlock costume drama for the late '90s, no? There's Annette Bening as the castrating bitch in a proto-Kate Gosselin severe cropcut, outfitted in a career-friendly Ann Taylor skirt and gray blazer. And Chris Cooper, as the homophobe marine/secret queen in his earnest crewcut and high-waisted pants. Between them, it seemed the most artful incarnation of a year dominated by an empire's discontents. In Fight Club, Office Space, and American Beauty the main characters tell their bosses to fuck off, but they remain on the payroll. Lester, played by Kevin Spacey, has a much broader appeal than Tyler Durden or Peter Gibbons. Nevertheless, even those of us who were enchanted by the slacker ethos and anti-hero narrative then, know better now. Dare I say, popular consensus, among '80s babies, is that American Beauty is a bad movie. This is why:

It's a pitifully pre-9/11 movie: We were prosperous! There's no war! We have a good economy! Yet we are still sad! Being unable to love someone more than yourself is the central theme of the film, but given the glibness with which it's handled, it seems petty. The angst that drives American Beauty is three decades too late. Peter Rainer, one of the only dissenting voices amidst the Oscar lovefest, wrote in New York Magazine, "Moviemakers who feel betrayed by the cheery sitcoms of their adolescence can now take it out on all the rest of us and, as a bonus, get points for profundity too." He goes on:

"There's something else afoot in American Beauty. Lester is not only the anti-Ozzie Nelson, he's also a counterculture washout who smoked dope and partied in the '60s and now has nothing to show for it. Why should we care about him? What ideals did he leave behind? We're never really told. The filmmakers apparently don't feel the need to fill out Lester's character; it's as if he were fated to become a drone by the country's straitjacket culture."

Today we have the anxiety of existing in the twilight of an empire, where the longstanding edifices of authority are disintegrating and there's a potent fear that we will be the transitional (or sacrificial) generation that gets lost in the din. It may all prove to be better for those who came before us and those who will be here after, but those of us who were born between Apocalypse Now and Wall Street seem to be in a bit of a bind. There is no sense of that coming dread in American Beauty—it's static; a silent groan about the excesses of comfort. Whereas Fight Club, Three Kings, eXistenZ, and others embodied a looming paranoia and diminution that feels steady today. (I mean, did you see The Dark Knight Rises trailer for chrissake?). It feels impossible to go to American Beauty, now, as an adult, and find anything but a nasty, patronizing movie that tries to spin baby boomer disillusionment into universal themes.

Sam Mendes proved himself a hack willing to offset the weakness of a script with overwrought style. He also refuses, or perhaps encourages, the worst excesses in his actors. A performance in a Mendes movie is a needlessly high-decibel affair that might give you the sensation of satire—its actually just hammy bluster. Spacey, with his dry line readings—who always gives the sense that he is indeed smarter than the character he's playing—trotted out the same tricks in a string of garbage Oscar bait after his Best Actor win. Writer Alan Ball landed where he belongs—writing a campy, hypersexed TV show about vampires.

We can be thankful to American Beauty for one thing, though: sharpening our senses. After all, one of the best parts of growing up is developing a bullshit detector; learning that our own sensibilities as moviegoers evolve. People will repeatedly return to the formative movies of their youth with the ability to see the flaws and anachronisms, but still find the experience invigorating. There are some movies that quaintly don't hold up, but retain their endearing qualities. Like, say, Beetlejuice. Then there are movies that betray, manipulate, and cheat you.

At the end of American Beauty, after his maniac neighbor has murdered Lester, the camera soars above the nameless suburb, as Lester serenely narrates:

...I can't feel anything
but gratitude for every
single moment of my
stupid little life...
You have no idea what I'm
talking about, I'm sure.
But don't worry...

FADE TO BLACK.

You will someday.

It's one thing when a movie is fun trash. It's quite another when trash totters around calling itself art and insists that you agree. The older I get, the more I find myself asking, "What do they take me for?" Now I yell at my TV when movies like American Beauty take top prize, because good heavens, that plastic bag speech. How could we have been so blind! We were young—what was everyone else's excuse?